Body Wisdom Rising

Why the Winter Solstice Is the Most Powerful Manifestation Portal and How to Work with the 13 Sacred Nights

• Alyssa Stefanson

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Darkness isn’t a void to outrun; it’s the womb of everything new. As the winter solstice brings the longest night, we explore how this pause in nature invites a profound reset of body, mind, and spirit. We trace the roots of solstice traditions across cultures, why rituals like Yule fires and evergreens endure, and how later institutions rewired us to fear stillness. Through a grounded, nervous system lens, we transform vague “manifestation” into something practical: building capacity so what we call in can actually be held and sustained.

We spend time in the magic dark, that threshold where old identities soften and new forms gather strength before they’re visible. The 13 sacred nights become a gentle rhythm for integration rather than a productivity sprint. You’ll learn why fatigue and heightened emotion at year’s end are signals, not flaws; how intuitive whispers get drowned by overstimulation; and why practices like singing, crafting, and baking regulate the system and return scattered energy to the body. We also reclaim the quiet power of thirteen—aligned with lunar cycles, water, and tides—as a compass for cyclical living.

To make this real, I share a step-by-step solstice ritual you can begin right away: prepare from December 21 to 24, use a single beeswax candle after sundown, journal what your body reveals, track dreams and synchronicities, and tend a living altar with cedar, dried orange, and cinnamon. At the close of the 13 nights, simmer your herbs and offer the steam, the scent, and the water to your home or the earth as a way of marking completion and welcoming what’s next. If you’re ready to pause, integrate, and let the year ahead emerge from presence—not pressure—this conversation will meet you where you are.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs permission to rest, and leave a five-star review so more listeners can find these grounded tools. Join me on Instagram at Wild Feminine Rise to follow along as we move through the sacred nights together.

Alyssa's IG: @wildfemininerise


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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Body Wisdom Rising podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa, and my intention here is to deliver grounded embodied insights alongside practical tools and resources to help you heal, awaken, and remember your sacred nature. This is rooted spirituality, bringing people back to their bodies, back to their roots, and back into connection with the ancestral ways that have always carried us, not spiritual fluff, not disconnected theory, weaving together the best of ancient wisdom and modern science, living, breathing practices and conversations that integrate healing, wellness, earth-based wisdom, and conscious growth. Each week I share space with experts in trauma recovery, holistic health, and ancestral ways of knowing, as well as voices with lived experience and powerful transformational stories. Together we explore what it truly means to rise rooted, embodied, and whole. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review as it helps these conversations reach the people who need them most. And let's get into the episode. Welcome back to another episode. I'm really glad you're here today. This episode feels especially important because we're coming up on the winter solstice. So the longest night of the year, and it's one of the most powerful energetic and biological reset points that we have. So today I want to talk about why this time of year can feel so intense for so many people, why our bodies are asking us to slow down, even though life feels busy, and why the dark isn't something to fear. It's actually where new seeds get planted. And we're going to talk about the 13 sacred or holy nights, why so many ancient cultures worked with this window, how manifestation actually works from a nervous system perspective, and why integration, not pushing, is what prepares us for what's next. And if you stay until the end, I'm going to walk you through the exact solstice ritual I'm personally doing. So you can, if you feel called to, uh, do it alongside me in your own way, if you feel called to. So before we dive in, I want to share a quick reminder that the doors are currently open for Ancestral Alchemy, my 12-week lineage healing and somatic integration program beginning January 11th. So this is the first time I'm running this container, and it's also the lowest price it will ever be. We already have an incredible group of people inside, and I'm really genuinely so excited about the depth and integrity of this circle. Our first module is being released on December 21st on the winter solstice. So everyone who joins gets to begin early. So grounding into this work, integrating, and moving through this powerful seasonal threshold before the program officially opens in January or begins in January, I should say. And ancestral alchemy is about reconnecting to your lineage, releasing inherited burdens that were never truly yours to carry, and reclaiming ancestral gifts that are meant to move through you. And if you want to learn more, you can find the full program details in the show notes, along with a discount code that's available right now. Okay, let's begin. So the winter solstice, happening on December 21st, marks the longest night and the shortest day of the entire year. So it's the moment when the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky and then pauses. So the sun appears to stand still before it begins its slow return. And that moment, that still point is very sacred. Our ancestors didn't just observe the solstice, they organized their lives around it. So for thousands of years across cultures and continents, this night was honored as the true turning of the year, not January 1st, this moment, when darkness reaches its peak and light begins to return was the reset, the rebirth, the beginning. And what they understood, and what we've largely forgotten, is that creation doesn't begin in the light, it begins in the unseen. Seeds germinate in dark soil, babies form in the dark of the womb. Healing happens beneath the surface long before it's visible. And even ideas are conceived in quiet internal spaces before they ever take shape in the world. Darkness is not the absence of life, it is the womb of life. This is what I call the magic dark. The magic dark is the in-between space, the threshold, the place where identity dissolves and something new begins to form before you can name it, before you can see it, before you're ready to move. And right now, this is where we are. So if you've been feeling more tired than usual, more reflective, more emotional, or like parts of your old self are quietly falling away, that isn't a problem. It's a signal. Your body and nervous system are responding to a very real seasonal and energetic shift that humans have always known how to honor. So this moment isn't asking you to push forward. It's asking you to pause. Because whatever is born with the returning light is being conceived now in the dark. For most of human history, the winter solstice wasn't just noticed, it was revered. Across cultures, people watched the sun carefully. They tracked its descent day by day, knowing that survival depended on light returning. And when the sun finally stopped falling and began its slow return, it was seen as nothing short of miraculous. Northern European cultures celebrated Yule, lighting fires, bringing evergreen branches into the home as a symbol of life continuing through darkness. Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a solstice-aligned festival centered on rest, feasting joy, and temporarily dissolving social hierarchies. Across the globe, from ancient Egypt to Persia to indigenous northern cultures, the solstice was honored as the moment creation resets. This wasn't superstition, it was observational wisdom. People understood that when nature pauses, humans must pause too. But as Christianity became institutionalized centuries later, things began to shift. So December 25th was not chosen because it was believed to be Jesus' actual birthday. Historians across traditions agree on this. It was chosen strategically. So the goal wasn't to erase solstice traditions outright, because that would have caused resistance, but to absorb them. So the ritual stayed, evergreen trees, candles, feasting, gathering, fire, light in the darkness. But what changed was where authority was placed. So instead of people marking the return of the sun and their own relationship with nature, spiritual power was centralized. So the celebration moved away from the earth, the body, the seasons, and into hierarchy, doctrine, and control. And quietly, something else was pushed aside in that transition, the dark. So we are taught to fear darkness, to associate it with danger, to stay busy during it, to distract ourselves from stillness. But that fear doesn't come from nature. In nature, darkness is not something to avoid. It's where everything begins. Seeds sprout in the dark soil, babies grow in the womb, the nervous system repairs itself in darkness. The subconscious speaks most clearly when external input quiets. Darkness isn't an ending, it's incubation. And when you suppress darkness, you suppress intuition because intuition doesn't shout, it whispers, it requires stillness, it requires slowing down enough to hear it. A culture that keeps people overstimulated, exhausted, and afraid of quiet is a culture that doesn't want people listening inward. Because someone who trusts their inner knowing is very hard to control. That's why rest has been reframed as laziness, why stillness feels uncomfortable, why slowing down feels almost rebellious. And yet your body knows better. Most people feel more tired right now, more reflective, more emotional, more aware that something is ending and something else is forming. And that's not weakness. That's ancient intelligence waking back up. This season is meant to turn us inward, not to isolate us, but to recalibrate us. Starting on the night of the winter solstice, we enter what many traditions call the 13 sacred or holy nights. So these nights were understood as liminal space, a threshold. The old year has ended, but the new year hasn't fully begun yet. We're in the in between. And anytime you're in between identities, cycles, or ways of being, that's where transformation actually happens. Lara J. Day speaks beautifully about this in her work on the 13 sacred nights. She teaches that each of these nights carries the energetic imprint of one month of the year ahead, not as a prediction, but as a relationship, a dialogue with what's trying to emerge. So the invitation isn't to plan your year, it's to listen to it. Because this time isn't about forcing manifestation, it's about integration. And integration simply means this: your nervous system catching up to what you've lived through. Integration is the process of metabolizing experiences emotionally, somatically, psychologically, so they don't stay stored as tension, reactivity, or unfinished loops in the body. Without integration, we repeat. With integration, we choose. And that's why this window matters so much, especially after the kind of year so many people just moved through. So many experience deep shedding, identity shifts, relationship endings, old coping strategies no longer working, and narrowing before expansion. So this wasn't just random, this was preparation. But preparation without integration turns into burnout. And manifestation without capacity turns into overwhelm. So from a nervous system perspective, manifestation isn't about visualizing harder. It's about having the capacity to hold the reality that you're calling in. So if your system is still carrying unprocessed grief, fear, or survival patterns, it doesn't matter how clear your intentions are, your body won't feel safe sustaining what you're asking for. That's why integration comes before acceleration. That's why the sacred nights are slow, quiet, simple. And long before rigid calendars and productivity cycles, humans followed the moon. So there are roughly 13 lunar cycles each year, 13 full moons, 13 opportunities to shed, renew, rest, and begin again. 13 wasn't unlucky. 13 was life-giving. It was the number of the feminine, not as gender, but as a principle: cyclical, intuitive, creative, embodied. The moon governs tides, sleep, dreams, emotions, and we are mostly water. When ancient cultures honored 13, they were honoring the intelligence of the body and the wisdom of cycles. And that's why the 13 holy nights matter so much. They mirrored the lunar year. They reflected the understanding that time moves in spirals, not straight lines. When societies shifted toward control, hierarchy, and constant output, these feminine codes became inconvenient. You can't dominate people who trust their inner timing. You can't rush people who know when to rest, and you can't easily control people who are deeply embodied and intuitive. So the dark was made suspicious. Stillness was reframed as laziness, and 13, once sacred, became something to fear. But none of that changed what lives in our bodies. This is why so many of us feel drawn to crafting, baking, singing, decorating, tending the home this time of year. These aren't just hobbies, they're integration practices. Our ancestors understood this. Singing regulates the nervous system. Repetitive handwork calms the brain. Crafting brings scattered energy back into the body. Baking grounds us through scent, warmth, rhythm, and care. This is why I've been baking, crafting, and singing over the past few weeks. I'm allowing my system to settle. This is integration. So integration is allowing your body to catch up to what you've lived through. It's where lessons settle, where emotions complete their cycles, where the nervous system learns it's safe to move forward again. And this is where the magic dark offers us spaciousness, not clarity all at once, but the conditions for clarity to emerge. So whatever is going to rise with the returning light is being shaped here in the dark. And if you want, stay with me because next I'll walk you through the exact solstice ritual I'm personally doing this year, step by step. So you can work with these nights in a way that feels grounding, supportive, and real. And follow this practice if you feel called to or take pieces of it, whatever works for you. So this practice begins on the winter solstice, December 21st, the darkest night of the year. So traditionally, the 13 sacred nights are observed from sundown on December 24th to sundown on January 6th, with each night corresponding to the energetic imprint of the year ahead. So the first night representing the entire year, and the following 12 nights representing each calendar month. But the days leading up to that window matter just as much. So from December 21st through December 24th, this is a preparatory phase. So this is when you slow down, gather what you'll work with, begin tuning your nervous system and attention inward, create your altar, and start living more intentionally with the dark. This is not about doing more, it's about listening more. So during these nights, the only light I'm intentionally working with this year is a beeswax candle, especially once the sun goes down. So beeswax carries a full spectrum light that is much closer to natural sunlight than artificial lighting or even other types of candles. It's warm, steady, and regulating. It doesn't jolt the nervous system the way bright white or blue light does. And energetically, beeswax is also deeply ancestral. Comes from relationship, from bees, from pollination, from devotion and order and cooperation. So each evening when the sun sets, I am going to light the candle and let that be the signal. So we're entering the quiet, we're listening now, we're not rushing, and I'm gonna journal. I'll pull my cards, I'll notice what's arising within my body, what stands out in my body, my emotions, my inner world. So this practice is less about predicting anything. It's more about becoming present enough to notice what's already forming. And I'm also recording my dreams each morning and paying attention to synchronicities and signs I receive throughout those 13 days. So this is really a practice of presence and noticing. My altar that I'm working with is simple and alive. So this year I'm working with cedar for protection, clearing, and connection with spirit. Oranges, so I dehydrated orange slices, and this symbolizes abundance, sweetness, vitality, and the returning sun. And a reminder that light always comes back. And I'm using cinnamon sticks for warmth, protection, circulation, and sacred fire that carries momentum and intention. And at the end of the 13 nights, I'll gather the herbs I've been working with and I'll boil them gently in water. This is a closing ritual. So the intentions, reflections, prayers, and awareness gathered over these nights are offered into the steam, into the air, into the home. So the scent fills the home. And then the water can be used intentionally as either for a bath, as floor wash, or you can simply pour it back to the earth as an offering. So it's a way of saying that this cycle has been witnessed. This year has been honored. And the next one is being welcomed with intention. Just a reminder that this practice doesn't ask you to manifest harder. It's simply not about asking you to be louder. It's just simply asking you to be present. So you don't have to know all the answers, just uh being present, tending, listening, and allowing what's forming in the dark to take root quietly, patiently, honestly. That's where the real magic lives. And please feel free to join me in this practice. I'm going to be sharing about it as I'm doing this practice on my stories and on Instagram if you aren't following me already at Wild Feminine Rise. So I'll be sharing more there. And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And um, happy solstice to all of you and look forward to the next episode. Hopefully, I'll be posting another one this week. I'm gonna be a little bit more consistent with them. Many of you are really enjoying the solo sodes, and the guest episodes will be returning in the new year as well. I'm gonna be trying I'm gonna try and be more active in the new year on here as well, posting more episodes as uh you're all really enjoying them. So thank you so much for tuning in and see you all soon.